1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a bankable apparatus or item for sending any reasonable amount of money by mail for any purpose.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Tens of millions of checks are being sent by mail daily in the United States and in all the countries of the world. A very large portion of these checks have face values in relatively small amounts to be of any serious concern if the printed or written face values were not concealed but exposed to mail carriers or to other persons involved in the transaction, as it would be in the case of post card checks. Senders or writers of post card checks, however, are apprehensive about exposing to the public their personal, company, or corporate bank account numbers for fear of their being duplicated by the criminal elements in society in order to produce fraudulent checks to raid their bank accounts. Thus, despite some advantages of using post card checks, their use by individuals as personal checks is almost non-existent, while business entities use them only for extremely small amounts. There is, therefore, a need to produce a postcard-check type that conceals from the public the bank account numbers of the senders, writers, or payors.
The advantages of using postcard checks that one can just drop into the mailbox without placing them inside envelopes are both financial and personal. In the United States, the postage for internal, local, or national first class mails in envelopes is $0.32. For postcards, the postage is $0.20. Using postcard checks instead of the regular checks that need to be placed inside envelopes would mean a savings of $0.12 per check mailed. There is also the cost of the envelope to consider.
The most distasteful thing in using envelopes for mailing, is the licking of these envelopes. Applicant, who sends many checks for charities every pay period or every other week, would salivate to the point of vomiting every time he licks these envelopes. The use of postcard checks to send small amounts to charities that solicit by mail will save him from all of these lickings. In licking envelopes, there is also the real danger of cutting one's tongue. All of these, no doubt, discourage people from giving to charities that solicit by mail.
For one receiving 10 to 20 solicitations per month a donation of $1.00, $2.00, $5.00, $10.00, or $20.00 per donation would cost a minimum of $10.00 to a maximum of $400.00 dollars per month. To one with a generous heart, but a very limited means such a person goes through a lot of mental anguish each month as he/she tries to determine who gets his/her donation and how much.
(2) After the decision is made as to how many charities and how much each gets his/her donation for the month he/she then goes through much hassle. He/she must (a) write the name of the charity/church on a personal check, (b) sign the check, (c) place the check inside an envelope, (d) lick the envelope, (e) close the envelope, (f) buy a postage stamp, (g) lick the stamp, and (h) stick the stamp on the envelope.
The above are not small matters when one is giving to as many as 10 to 20 charities/churches each month. The postage stamps alone would cost from $2.90 to $5.80 each month. There is also the cost of using 10 to 20 personal checks and the headache of reconciling the checking accounts, what with so many checks being issued each month. They are irritating and they discourage giving. These problems are real not only to the proponent of the instant invention but also to tens of millions of kind-hearted charity donors in the U.S. and in all of the advanced countries in the world.
The instant invention of a directly mailable postcard-type check, personal or otherwise, significantly minimizes these problems. Also, a reduction in postage for checks mailed in envelopes from $0.32 to $0.20 for postcards means a savings to the donor of $0.10 per mailed donation.